


Doomed

by everyl1ttleth1ng



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gendry misses Arya, I love Davos, Light Angst, TV canon compliant, The Lord of Storm's End, father son feels, the wheel is broken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-04-08 06:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19101922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyl1ttleth1ng/pseuds/everyl1ttleth1ng
Summary: “A crush?” Gendry echoed faintly. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”“She broke your heart, lad. Is that better?”“Not better. More truthful, I suppose.” He rubbed at his beard for a moment, watching the bustle in the yard far below. “Why the daggers, do you think? Why did I find that so intoxicating? And the archery…”“Don’t forget the throat-cutting threats in the Dragonpit,” Davos added. “You mooned over those for weeks.”Gendry shook his head. “It’s as if I want to be married to a girl who's just as like to kill me as bed me.”





	1. Chapter 1

“What do you think is wrong with me, Davos?”

 

Davos laughed. “Where to start, lad?”

 

Gendry raised his eyes to meet those of his Hand. “I’m serious.”

 

“Is it the usual that’s worrying you?” The older man’s gaze was not unsympathetic.

 

The Lord of Storm’s End sighed. “I think it’ll always worry at me.”

 

“And it does tend to get in the way of you choosing a bride.”

 

Gendry pushed his large chair back from the table and stalked to the window. “When I think of the things that drew me to her…”

 

“She was dangerous, she was powerful,” replied Davos with a practised familiarity. “You probably weren’t the only one nursing a crush on her.”

 

“A crush?” Gendry echoed faintly. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

 

“She broke your heart, lad. Is that better?”

 

“Not better. More truthful, I suppose.” He rubbed at his beard for a moment, watching the bustle in the yard far below. “Why the daggers, do you think? Why did I find that so intoxicating? And the archery…”

 

“Don’t forget the throat-cutting threats in the Dragonpit,” Davos added. “You mooned over those for weeks.”

 

Gendry shook his head. “It’s as if I _want_ to be married to a girl who's just as like to kill me as bed me.”

 

His Hand laughed. “I’m sure there are some deep, lurking complexities there that are well beyond your or my understanding.”

 

“She better not send me anyone’s severed ear or anything,” Gendry said, his smile wry. “It’d almost be enough to get me back in that mouldering old row boat of yours to go after her.”

 

Davos clapped him firmly on the shoulder. “Well, after a romantic gesture like that, who could blame you?”

 

“I don’t know any other women who like fighting. There’s no one else I can think of who’d appreciate a well-made blade like Arya would.”

 

Davos shrugged. “Couldn’t you take to beating out some dainty jewellery? A tiara or some such bauble? Ladies like trinkets.”

 

His Lord shook his head and held up his large, calloused hands. “Hands of a blacksmith, Davos. My blessing and my curse. And ladies may like trinkets but I don’t seem to like those sorts of ladies.”

 

“Maybe she’ll send to you for some weapons someday,” Davos said hopefully. “You could send back a marriage proposal tucked among the swords.”

 

“Tried that, remember? An unmitigated disaster.”

 

“Do you think _she’d_ like a little box of severed ears?” the Hand suggested, and he only half sounded like he was joking. “You could tie it up with a lovely ribbon. I’ve got a few petitioners that won’t let up. We could kill two birds with one stone.”

 

Gendry laughed. “Better not. If I’m stuck here trying to play at lording and I don’t even have Arya, I’d at least better try not to harm the populace.”

 

Davos watched him a moment in silence before he spoke. “I’m sorry, son. I wish I could see you happy.”

 

“Maybe happiness is not really for the likes of me,” Gendry replied. “I guess I’ll get used to it.”

 

“Well, you don’t have to be in any rush to decide that,” Davos assured him. “Remember what Tyrion Lannister said in front of all those fancy people. The wheel is broken. If King Bran isn’t required to marry and produce an heir then no more are you. Sure, the people might like to see their Lord get married, everyone enjoys a party after all, but if the custom is to change such that kingship and lordship is elected by councils then you are under no more pressure to produce an heir than is that statue out there.”

 

Gendry looked down at the stone figure of the man he’d been told was his father. The pigeons perched across the breadth of his shoulders somewhat lessened the impact of his imposing scowl.

 

“I’m a simple man, Davos,” he said. “I haven’t wanted much in my life and I’ve expected even less. But I have wanted a family. Why did I have to go and fall in love with bloody Arya Stark?”

 

“Sounds like she came after you fairly relentlessly,” Davos sympathised. “It’s a stronger man than most that could turn down the advances of a maiden who knows exactly what she wants.”

 

“That’s not it,” said Gendry. “I mean, that’s not all. It wasn’t just the weapons and the advances. We’d been thrown together as children. We’d saved one another’s lives, looked out for one another when neither of us had anyone else.”

 

The older man nodded earnestly. “Like the bond formed between men who fight side by side.”

 

“Yeah,” laughed Gendry. “Only I don’t for a second want to marry Jon or Tormund or any of those blokes I fought alongside. It’s more… I don’t know,” he sighed. “More tender than that?”

 

“She loves you back,” said Davos simply. “And you’re sure of it. That’s why you’re finding it so hard to move on. Not many men find a woman they can truly love. Even less find they have their love returned. To have found both and still not be with her, that’s a wound that won’t heal easily.”

 

“Especially not if I keep worrying at it like this.”

 

“And yet you don’t seem to be able to quit it.”

 

Gendry ran his hands through his hair, breathing out a sigh of frustration.

 

“Want to write her a little sonnet, lad? Have something to show for your suffering? I can hunt you up a troubadour with a lute if you think it’d help?”

 

“Shut up, Davos.”

 

Davos held up his hands in mock surrender. “Only trying to help, my Lord.”

 

“Honestly, how long do you think it’ll take me to forget her?” Gendry pleaded.

 

“Lady Arya Stark of Winterfell? And she’s been in your bed?” Davos let out a low whistle. “You never forget a woman like that.”

 

“So I’m doomed, is that it?”

 

Davos reached out and touched him gently on the arm. “Could Marya and I count as your family?” he said quietly. “I love you like my own son, you know.”

 

Gendry’s blue eyes fixed themselves upon him.

 

“Robert Baratheon may have cast you aside but I’d be honoured beyond words if you were mine,” Davos went on. “I loved my own Matthos, of course, but we never really saw eye to eye. You’re more like me than he ever was. I know it sounds foolish and vain to love someone because they’re like you but I think every father looks for the imprint of himself in his son. Matthos wanted me to be different and I wanted him to be different. But you, Gendry? Apart from your unhealthy love for a terrifying woman, I wouldn’t change a single thing about you.”

 

The younger man laughed, even as he swiped a hand at the tears he could feel on the verge of falling. He grabbed Davos into a fierce hug, almost crushing him with the force of it.

 

“I’ve always thought of you as the father I wished I had,” Gendry said quietly into Davos’ shoulder, “more than I ever wanted any king for a dad. And I have been thinking of you and Marya as my family for a while now, whether you wanted it or not.”

 

They eventually pulled apart, both watery eyed.

 

“Thanks for telling me you wanted it,” Gendry muttered.

 

“Nothing more than the truth,” Davos replied, his voice hoarse with emotion. He shook his head. “So what are we going to do about your girl troubles, son?” he asked.

 

Gendry shrugged. “Guess I can just pick up where I left off tomorrow?”

 

Davos chuckled. “Well, that’s what we’ve been doing every other day for the last three months.”

 

“She might come back, you know.”

 

“You keep telling yourself that, lad,” said Davos. You just keep telling yourself that.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The first chest arrived the following week. It was heavy and ornate and the men carrying it had been told that they were not to let it out of their sight until they placed it in the Great Hall at Storm’s End.

 

“I suppose she could fit a good number of severed ears in there,” Davos observed.

 

Gendry just looked at him, eyes wide. “Don’t you see what this means? She’s thinking of me, Davos.”

 

“Thinking what, I wonder. Open the lid you fool.”

 

It took some strength to break the solid lock but Gendry was up to the task. He seemed to enjoy that challenge a good deal more than most of his usual duties.

 

The chest was thankfully not full of severed ears but it was an odd assortment nonetheless. The top of the chest was filled with layers of carefully folded fabrics. Rich silks, thick furs, extravagant lace, soft woven linens.

 

Gendry lifted each piece out slowly, reverently, and when he thought Davos wasn’t looking, he held the linen to his face and tried to breathe in its scent. It was only the saltiness of the sea air.

 

Beneath the fabrics was tucked the most supple, tan leather saddle, stirrups and bridle Gendry had ever seen. He couldn’t bring himself to look at it for too long. The though that it was sized to fit one of his horses and that she might have selected it as a gift for him pleased him immensely. The lurking possibility that it was sized for _her_ choice of horse and that she had sent it on to Storm’s End ahead of her own arrival thrilled him completely.

 

In one corner, where it had been wedged behind the bulky saddle was tucked what looked like a roll of black and silver. Gendry tugged it out, unrolled it and laid it flat on the table beside him. It was a sword belt, black leather like his doublet, with solid silver bulls locking horns in pairs all the way around. This did elicit a grin. Arya has chosen this belt and she’d chosen it for him.

 

He tried to imagine her face when first she saw it. Would her expression have remained coolly impassive or might she have even smiled at the sight, imagining him wearing it.

 

He avoided Davos’ smirk as he yanked at his sword, tugged off his own plain black leather belt and wrapped the new one around his waist. It wouldn’t make him a better swordsman, he thought wryly, but it would make him feel a great deal more cheerful about endlessly having to wear one.

 

Absently fingering the bulls at his hip with one hand, with the other he dug back into the chest to see what else she’d sent him.

 

More black leather it seemed. Maybe it hadn’t been wishful thinking, that sense of her cool gaze on him at the Dragonpit. He’d felt all wrong being there and if Davos hadn’t almost literally had a knife at his back, he might have just snuck off somewhere else.

 

Instead, he’d taken his Hand’s advice.

 

“Just shut up and look pretty. Think you can manage that, _Lord Baratheon_?”

 

Gendry had known it to be rhetorical otherwise he might have quibbled about the pretty part. But now, holding black leather doublet after hand-tooled black leather doublet against his chest, he finally felt he had confirmation. Arya _had_ found him pretty that day and this was her way of encouraging him to keep it up.

 

He didn’t let himself dwell on the inversion too much. There was she, sailing the world, exploring the unknown and sending back clothes and trinkets to him as he sat shut up in his castle, kept safe and far away from the action. But Gendry had never minded when Arya took charge. He could think of one particular occasion in which that tendency of hers had served him particularly well. So if Arya were out there somewhere, thinking of him with the occasional condescension that a pirate king might spare for his land-locked lady love, he was ready and willing to receive her trinkets.

 

On the floor of the chest was a clatter of blades. He almost plunged his hand in until the glint of a knife edge gave him pause. Twenty or so unsheathed weapons rattling around in a chest! He so hoped he’d one day have the opportunity to lecture her about that. He smiled to himself, already seeing the roll of her eyes.

 

Being more careful this time, gingerly lifting each blade by its handle, he held them one by one to the light. They were extraordinary workmanship. He felt slightly chuffed she’d selected them for him, wanted him to see them.

 

Bu when he got to the very bottom of the chest, the letter he’d been keenly anticipating, the explanation for all these riches, was missing. He scrabbled about at the bottom to the extent that he almost tipped himself in.

 

Nothing.

 

“No love notes, then, my lord?” Davos asked slyly. “No declarations of her undying affection?”

 

Gendry slumped into the nearest chair, trying not to give Davos the satisfaction of seeing his disappointment.

 

“Do you suppose this is all for me? Or is she just wanting to use Storm’s End as her personal storage facility?”

 

“You wasted no time getting that belt around you,” the older man observed dryly. “And those doublets were made to fit a bulk like yours, not a slip of a thing like her.”

 

“What about the silks and the lace?” Gendry mused, taking the soft edge of one between his fingers. “What does she imagine I’m going to do with those?”

 

“Could she have intended them as a gift for the Lady of Storm’s End?” asked Davos quietly.

 

Gendry’s brows knit together in confusion. “The lady?”

 

“ _Your_ lady,” said Davos. “The one she encouraged you to find after she told you in no uncertain terms that it wouldn’t be her?”

 

Gendry turned to gaze out the window. Everywhere he looked in this place, he could see the sea. He hadn’t expected it to be quite this level of torture.

 

“What are my instructions, my lord?” Davos’ question broke into his reverie.

 

“The men who brought it,” Gendry said hurriedly. “Where are they now?”

 

“I thought of that, lad,” Davos replied. “Two well-paid hirelings. Honest for once. Thought they’d actually see the job through.”

 

“And you rewarded them?”

 

“After they brought my Lord Lovelorn a gift from Arya Stark? I practically gave them a place at court I was that hopeful this might shut you up about her.”

 

Gendry looked back at him apologetically. “I don’t think that’s how this is going to go,do you, Davos?”

 

The older man laughed. “I’ve steeled myself for another moon’s worth of moping but after that I’m just as like to take one of these exemplary blades and slit your fucking throat.”

 

“Point well taken, Davos.” Gendry laughed nervously.

 

He knew he couldn’t try his Hand’s patience forever. But how long would Arya insist on trying his?

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bloody knew it. I KNEW I'd end up back here... Curses...  
> A pox on Gendry and Arya and Joe Dempsie and his blue, blue eyes...  
> And I don't think I've ever even sworn in a fic before. Ser Davos just had a lot of frustration he needed to express, and who could blame him! This fandom is gonna corrupt me, I can see it...


	3. Chapter 3

The moon waxed and waned with no further word from Arya Stark.

 

Gendry got about the castle now in the black leather she had sent him, the bull belt snug about his waist and one of her swords strapped to his side.

 

It was all Davos could do not to roll his eyes at the very sight of him.

 

“You haven’t got a length of that silk shoved down your doublet, have you?” he asked, eyes narrowed.

 

Gendry wondered if Davos could tell that he’d definitely considered it.

 

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about it anymore. I haven’t forgotten your threat.”

 

“Good,” Davos replied, “Because it wasn’t idle. Can we get on with the business of ruling for a change?”

 

Gendry rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. It had become a habit. “Go on then,” he said. “What lordly expertise might you be wanting, Ser Davos? I’ll dig deep into my rich experience and no doubt pluck you a jewel.”

 

“You can shut up for starters,” his Hand grumped, “and now that you can sign your name with a little bit more than an X, slap your fancy title onto a few of these parchments for me.”

 

Gendry sighed and wandered over to his enormous table. He imagined his father had sat there many a night, deep in his cups, not caring a fig whether or not things got signed with an X or anything else for that matter. But he was haunted by something Arya had said to him, something he’d chosen to interpret as a kind of prophecy and one he desperately wanted to fulfil. “You’ll be a wonderful lord,” she had said. If she ever showed up, he’d like her to be able to see the proof of it.

 

He dipped his quill in ink and steadied himself with a few deep breaths before pulling the pile of parchment towards him. It made things tricky when he got big splashes of ink on official documentation. He’d learned this from experience.

 

It had been Davos himself who had painstakingly taught him to read and write, his own recent conversion to literacy serving as quite the boon for Gendry. Now and again Davos had paused to tell Gendry quiet stories of his own path to learning and, in the process, given his Lord some hope for the Baratheon blood than ran through his veins, albeit somewhat diluted with what the two of them liked to call Essence of Fleabottom. They’d drunk many a toast to the little lost Shireen Baratheon along the way and Gendry had learned that he wasn’t the first of Davos’ adopted children. He hoped to the gods, old and new, that he’d survive the old man, save him having to grieve any more of his children, chosen or otherwise.

 

That task out of the way, it seemed it was time to take his high seat in the Great Hall and hear his petitioners. This was the part he most wanted to do well and the role in which he felt he most floundered.

 

“Look at us,” he muttered to Davos under his breath as the people gathered. “Two lowborn scum providing justice to the small folk.”

 

“Remember what I always say, lad,” Davos muttered back. “The small folk have rarely seen real justice from a high born. We do it better than any I’ve seen.”

 

Gendry nodded and the first petitioner approached.

 

It was a long day but by the end, Davos and Gendry sat back exhausted and satisfied. Gendry knew they were making a difference in people’s lives. Things he’d never wanted or needed to know about before were now real to him in a way that was solid and meaningful - taxes, boundary lines, even sewers. The memories of Gin Alley still reeked for the boys from Fleabottom in a way that ensured they worked extra hard for their people, even on something as coarse to discuss as the city sanitation.

 

After the hall cleared, one solitary woman stood alone at the far end of the hall.

 

“Approach,” Davos called. “Tell us your business.”

 

“I bring a package, Ser,” she replied, “for Gendry of House Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End.”

 

“Bring it here, then,” Davos replied.

 

“I cannot,” the woman replied mysteriously, turning back towards the large oak doors through which she entered. “The Lord must step outside to take delivery of his goods.”

 

Gendry pushed himself to his feet and Davos followed him wearily out into the dying sunlight.

 

In the yard were tethered two magnificent horses, unlike any Gendry had ever seen. One was a coal-black destrier, the other, a pure white mare. The two horses stood calmly in the yard, utterly unperturbed by the bustle around them.

 

“I understand that your Lordship is already in receipt of a saddle for his horse,” she said. “Is that correct?”

 

Gendry willed himself to sound nonchalant. “And what of my benefactor?” he asked. “Who is it who continues to send me such rich gifts?”

 

The woman smiled but gave nothing away. “It is a friend, my Lord. A friend who thinks of you often.”

 

Gendry grinned. “Might I be permitted to know the name of this friend?”

 

“I have been assured that you already know it, my Lord, that you could not be in any doubt as to your benefactor’s identity. Your friend will be disappointed to learn that it is not so.”

 

He quickly held up his hands. “Don’t tell her I said that. Of course I know who it is.”

 

“As you say, my Lord.”

 

“And do you return to her now?” he asked. “Might I charge you with a letter to take to her?”

 

She shook her head. “I am not to travel with any documentation, my Lord. I have been strictly forbidden to do so.”

 

He let out a breath in frustration. “Words then? Will you carry a message?”

 

She nodded.

 

Gendry glanced back to Davos in alarm. What on earth could he say via this unknown woman to tell Arya all that was in his heart?

 

Davos shrugged. “Don’t look at me, lad.”

 

“Fat lot of good you are,” Gendry muttered.

 

“You can play at being a poet if you like, but leave me out of it, for your sake and hers.”

 

Gendry paced back and forth a moment until he felt he had the wording right.

 

“Tell her…” he said, his heart pounding in his chest, “Say to her, ‘Arya Stark, you never have been, nor will you ever be a lady’.”

 

Behind him Davos laughed. “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not a true romantic, lad.”

 

He walked off, shaking his head, but Gendry didn’t waver. He fixed his eyes on his visitor. “Tell her that from me.”

 

“As you say, my Lord,” she repeated, and she turned on her heel and walked away.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no, here we go again... back to post my third instalment in 24 hours. Not to put too dramatic a point on it but Gendrya have a claim on my soooooul.
> 
> Thank you to all of you being lovely about this. You are FO SHO fuelling my writing frenzy!!!


	4. Chapter 4

Gendry began each day donning his black leathers, fastening his sword belt and blade and heading out into the yard where his squire would have the coal-black destrier he’d christened Fury readied with his tan saddle, waiting for him.

 

Though he couldn’t quite bring himself to make her a gift of the white mare, he’d encouraged Marya to take her out for exercise whenever she desired and the lady, with the encouragement of her husband, cheerfully did as she was bid.

 

“That horse senses my every intention,” she marvelled, removing her riding gloves as she entered the Great Hall. “She’s the gentlest, most intelligent beast I’ve ever encountered. What did you decide to name her, my Lord?”

 

“ _Please_ Marya,” her Lord pleaded. “Just Gendry. You know that by now.”

 

“Very well,” she said with a soft smile. “What have you named her, Gendry?”

 

He beamed at her, widening his stance and clasping his hands together behind his back. “Winter,” he said decisively, clearly pleased with himself.

 

“Oh ho,” chuckled Davos. “Very subtle, my lad.”

 

Gendry bristled. “I don’t mind Arya knowing exactly what I’m about,” he said defensively. “You’ve seen me when I’m around her - not a hint of self-preservation. Should she ever arrive at Storm’s End and have need of a horse, I’d like to think she’d enjoy a reference to House Stark and her beloved family.”

 

“I like how cheerfully you’re describing her riding off and disappearing out of your life again,” Davos observed. “And I suppose it’ll be me left to pick up the pieces.”

 

Gendry laughed. “At least you’ll be well-practiced.”

 

“It’ll be your long-awaited appointment with that blade, should I find myself back at the beginning of all that fuckery again.”

 

“Was it his kind and sympathetic nature for which you first fell in love with him, Marya?” the younger man asked.

 

Marya gave a musical laugh and a waggle of her eyebrows. “That and his magnificent arse.”

 

“Goes without saying,” Gendry replied with a wink.

 

“Might I remind you two that we’re not in Flea Bottom anymore?” Davos said loudly. “If you’ll look about you, you might care to notice that we’re standing in the keep of a fucking castle.”

 

“But we all find ourselves craving a bowl of brown now and then, just as keenly as we ever did,” said Gendry, “So can we really pretend to be all that different? I’m a bastard lord, you’re the Onion Knight. Let’s not put on any airs and graces.”

 

Marya looked thoughtful. “It wouldn’t be quite the same with proper identifiable meat in it,” she mused, “but I might talk to the kitchen about seeing what they could do by way of replication.”

 

Gendry turned to his Hand grinning. “Now look at that, Davos. That there, _that’s_ leadership.”

 

The second chest arrived four moons later, delivered by the same honest hirelings as before.

 

Upon closer questioning Davos learned there was some sort of kinship between the men and some of the sailors through whom the goods had been acquired.

 

To Gendry’s extreme frustration they had no news or even knowledge of the ship’s lady captain.

 

This chest seemed full of burnished bronze plates and goblets but given his relatively recent and still tentative acquaintance with cutlery, Gendry couldn’t tell if they were intended for decorative or practical use. Davos and Marya weren’t any immediate help.

 

“Do I have to send a raven to the Queen of the North just to determine whether I stick this on a shelf or eat my mutton off it?” Gendry sighed. “We’re not cut out for this, any of it!”

 

“I’ll ask in the kitchen,” Marya suggested. “You get to know pots when you spend all day and night scrubbing them.”

 

“There,” said Davos. “We may not be blue-blooded but we know our way around below stairs. Probably counts for a good deal more when it comes to ruling a hold fast.”

 

Gendry rubbed at the back of his neck. “Let’s hope so.”

 

“Is that all there is in there?” Davos asked. “Just a load of bronze dinnerware?”

 

Gendry dutifully bent to lift out each piece one by one and laid them on the table beside him.

 

Gradually he began to uncover what looked like a thick fur-lined cloak. He grasped it by the shiny silver closings that were shaped like a full-grown oak tree, and lifted it out of the trunk, holding it aloft.

 

“What use have you got for that heavy thing this far south?” Davos asked.

 

Gendry noticed something slipping out from within the cloak and grasped at it before it hit the floor, letting the heavier garment fall back into the trunk.

 

“Is that a gown?” Marya asked. “What a lovely fabric!” She stepped towards Gendry, taking the gown from his outstretched hands and holding it up in the sunlight that streamed through the high windows.

 

“Buffoons like you won’t appreciate the fine work,” she said jovially, tilting it so that it better caught the light, “but look at the way this whole gown is put together – a layer of deep red beneath and then a floaty overlay made out of golden leaves.”

 

Marya’s words jolted Gendry back to another time and place but at first he couldn’t quite place it.

 

“What did you say?”

 

“Look for yourself,” she said, holding the shimmering gown out to him. “A gown of golden leaves.”

 

Davos started humming to himself, inserting the odd muttered word or phrase where he could remember it.

 

Gendry rounded on him. “How does it go?”

 

“What?” Davos asked. “How does _what_ go?”

 

“That song! The one you’re humming. Tell me the words, quick man!”

 

“Well, that’s the closest thing to a command you’ve ever given me, lad! Are you sure you want to waste it on something as flippant as-“

 

Gendry pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just sing it!” he shouted.

 

Shaking his head and eloquently widening his eyes at his wife, Davos dutifully started half-whistling, half-singing the old, old song. Marya hummed along and joined in with the words where she could remember them until at last they had pieced the whole thing together.

 

Gendry glanced absently into the trunk as he bid them sing it again, memories swimming before his mind’s eye of he and Arya as children, frolicking about at Acorn Hall and getting in everyone’s way.

 

_My featherbed is deep and soft, and there I’ll lay you down,_

_I’ll dress you all in yellow silk, and on your head a crown._

_For you shall be my lady love, and I shall be your lord._

_I’ll always keep you warm and safe, and guard you with my sword._

 

_And how she smiled and how she laughed, the maiden of the tree._

_She spun away and said to him, no featherbed for me._

_I’ll wear a gown of golden leaves, and bind my hair with grass,_

_But you can be my forest love, and me your forest lass._

 

One more item caught his eye, sitting alone in the base of the trunk.

 

He reached down to slowly take hold of it, gradually straightening back up again as the song drew to an end.

 

Davos took one look at the rapture on his Lord’s face and laughed. “I’m almost afraid to ask,” he sighed. “What is it this time, lad?”

 

Gendry held it out towards them.

 

“A crown of grass,” Marya said softly, understanding dawning as she took the simple woven circlet and turned it over in her hands.

 

Davos heard her tone and looked at her grumpily. “What’s this all about, love?” he demanded, but his wife was smiling broadly at Gendry and drawing near to him to take his shaking hands in hers.

 

Davos knew he had missed a step but he was damned if he knew what it was. “Will somebody please tell me what the _fuck_ is going on?”

 

Marya looked from Gendry to her husband. “I couldn’t be sure, love,” she said, “but I believe our Lord might just have found himself requited.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the nonnies on tumblr who came through with the awesome suggestions re what she might send him, THANK YOU!
> 
> And wowser, you guys are a fun fandom to write for. Thank you thank you thank you!
> 
> Love to hear what you think of this latest instalment!!


	5. Chapter 5

 

Since the arrival of the gown of golden leaves, Gendry had only ever guided his horse in one direction as he left the castle.

 

By day he had a horizon to watch.

 

By night he watched the moon and noted its phases, alternately rejoicing in the surely ever more imminent return of his beloved, and cursing his weak heart for always being too quick to read undying love where there had only ever been need, use and finality.

 

Davos found it all mildly amusing.

 

“Don’t encourage the lad, Marya,” he grumbled good-naturedly as he listened to the two of them debating for the fifth time whether or not they should be preparing a chamber for Arya’s particular use.

 

“He’s useless enough as it is without this watery hope glistening in his eyes all the damn time.”

 

Marya fixed her husband with a look.

 

Gendry sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Of course I love the idea of showing her to a chamber prepared just for her” he said, ignoring his Hand, “But what if that flies in the face of the whole forest lass thing? The last thing I want to do is scare her off.”

 

Davos snorted. “Scare? Arya Stark? The only one around here who should be scared is you, lad. If that she-wolf has you locked in her sights, you’d be better off running for your life than faffing about painting and decorating.”

 

Marya gave her husband a condescending pat on the arm. “Leave the boy alone, love. He’s pining.”

 

“Oh, don’t go thinking he’s all innocent and sweet. Look at him, Marya. See that stupid look on his face?” Davos observed wryly. “All this talk of her wanting to rip out his throat goes straight to his loins.”

 

Gendry turned away to hide his blush.

 

Davos shook his head. “I have never met a man more pathetically doomed than you, my lad.”

 

“Now, Davos,” Marya said, “We can’t just ignore what has transpired. Gendry sent her a message saying he knew she would never be a lady and what does he get in return? Unmistakeable references to a love song that Gendry remembers from their childhood together.”

 

“So what?” Davos shot back.

 

“The love song is _about_ a girl refusing to marry a lord and become his lady, but agreeing to be his forest lass.”

 

“Well, thank you for that incredibly enlightening explanation,” said Davos. “His forest lass, eh? Thank the gods for the songs and all the valuable advice contained therein. Now it is perfectly obvious what we should do.”

 

Gendry’s head snapped up. “What? What should we do?”

 

Davos looked askance at his wife. “This lad’s sarcastic little barbs used to bring my old heart so much joy, Marya. Now he can’t even pick one when it’s aimed directly at him.”

 

Marya sighed and turned in her seat such that she faced Gendry and had her back to her husband. “You and I know it, Gendry,” she said earnestly. “You freed her from the weight of all that expectation and now she just wants you.”

 

“Do you really think?” he asked, boyish in his hope.

 

“Gods, may the pair of you be buried alive in a fucking avalanche of flowers,” Davos said, getting to his feet. “And don’t come running to me when the bees sting you on the arse. That gown got here three moons ago. If she were really coming for her forest love, don’t you think we’d have seen her ship by now?”

 

A sudden bustle at the other end of the hall caught their attention.

 

“My Lord,” called one of Gendry’s stewards, half jogging towards them. “Riders approach.”

 

“Many?” asked Gendry, now on his feet.

 

“Two, my Lord. A knight bearing King Bran’s raven on her armour and brother of the Watch in the black.”

 

Gendry and Davos exchanged glances.

 

“What the fuck is Brienne of Tarth doing abandoning the King’s Guard and wandering this way?” Davos asked.

 

“Let’s go and find out,” said Gendry, striding off down the hall.

 

By the time Davos made it out into the courtyard he found a surprised Gendry being fiercely embraced by Jon Snow while the Commander of the King’s Guard watched on, smiling.

 

“Your Grace!” Davos cried.

 

Jon released Gendry, clapping him firmly on the back and looked at Davos with a sad smile. “Not Your Grace anymore, old friend. Not for a long while now.”

 

“But just as welcome, am I right, my Lord Baratheon?”

 

Gendry nodded earnestly as Jon embraced Davos. “The two of you are welcome in the Stormlands as long as you like, though of course I need not say that to you, Brienne. The Stormlands are your home.”

 

“I thank you for myself, Lord Baratheon,” she said with a bow, “but Jon will not be staying long.”

 

Gendry’s face fell. He looked at his friend. “You won’t?”

 

Jon laughed. “Neither will you, my friend. I’ve been sent to fetch you to Winterfell.”

 

Brienne held up a piece of parchment. “And I have an inventory of items recently arrived at Storm’s End that I’m to ensure go with you.”

 

Gendry looked at Davos, eyes wide.

 

"Do not fear for your holdfast, my Lord Baratheon," said Brienne earnestly. "King Bran has dispatched me to hold it until your return."

 

"My return?" Gendry's bafflement reduced him to glancing aimlessly about him, waiting for someone to take him in hand.

 

Davos easily threw an arm around Jon’s shoulders as he went to lead him inside. Gendry trailed along behind.

 

“Perhaps you can settle a little argument we’ve been having, Your Grace,” he said.

 

“Not Your Grace, Davos,” he repeated resignedly. “Just Jon Snow.”

 

“Well, that’s not quite right either, is it?”

 

Jon laughed. “Trust me, it’ll do. Now, what’s this argument?”

 

“It pertains to your lady sister, Jon,” Davos went on. “And whether or not she might be nursing a bit of a thing for my lad here.”

 

Jon winked at Davos conspiratorially. “Sansa? A thing for Gendry? She’s never mentioned it to me.” He turned to his friend. “Do you harbour any aspirations to be King of the North, Gendry? Take it from me, it’s not as much fun as it sounds.”

 

Gendry looked from one to the other of them in exasperation.

 

“Not _Sansa_ ,” he spluttered.

 

“Not Sansa, eh?” said Jon. “Well, I do happen to have _one_ other sister. Haven’t seen her in ages.” He turned to the knight. “Have you, Brienne?”

 

“She’s wily, that other sister of yours,” Brienne agreed. “But I think I might have spotted her once or twice around King’s Landing in the last week or so.”

 

“Arya’s returned?” Gendry asked urgently, finally grasping onto something that seemed solid in this slippery exchange.

 

“Why did you think I’d been sent to fetch you?” Jon replied laughing.

 

“Gods, I have no idea,” Gendry cried, throwing up his arms. “Take me where you will. I am utterly at her mercy!”

 

“We knew that already, right, Brienne?” said Jon.

 

“ _Everybody_ knows that,” replied the knight.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, possibly it's implausible that Jon would be here. I get that. But this is fanfic, right? And if we like the idea of Jon showing up to have a road trip with his future brother in law (or sort of brother in law) on the way to the wedding who's to stop us, amirite? Jon needs some love too, poor sod, after all that went down in the end - who's with me?
> 
> Heads up to stave off disappointment: Brienne also seriously needs some love, I grant you, but I am far more invested in having DADVOS (I was totally new to that thanks to one of your nice comments yesterday) present to watch his adopted son get claimed by the she-wolf than have him mooching around at Storm's End. Hence, Brienne is here to mooch around at Storm's End and keep things in check until the Lord gets back.
> 
> ALSO, you guys are THE BEST. I mean, a) you are a monster size fandom, I cannot BELIEVE how many of you have popped by to check this out but b) you are SO ENCOURAGING! Thank you!!!
> 
> Love to hear what you think of this one too!


	6. Chapter 6

Jon had insisted that they had to leave at first light the following morning though Davos and Marya were given permission to move at a more leisurely pace. The trip to Winterfell would be long, he told Gendry, and Arya grew impatient.

 

How Gendry was supposed to sleep after an announcement of that nature was anyone’s guess. Multiple times in the night he threw off his furs and paced about his chamber, willing his blood to slow from its constant rushing about him like a bank-bursting torrent. He knew he would feel wretched for however many hours of riding Jon wanted them to do the next day but he just could not stop his brain from whirring away.

 

Somehow, it seemed there was no mistake. The horses, the saddle, the belt and black leather doublets, the cloak, the fabrics and especially the golden gown - all of these items had been on Brienne’s list and were now readied or secured for their early travel.

 

Arya was confirmed to be his benefactor, had returned from her travels back to Westeros and wanted him enough to pluck her brother from however far north he had wondered and send Jon decisively south to fetch him.

 

Gendry lay awake wondering what Arya hoped for their ‘forest love’. He wanted to be the most accommodating man in the world. He hoped he had it in him.

 

Despite his fears, Gendry woke the next morning feeling just as refreshed as ever which was for the best because Jon seemed remarkably chipper.

 

He shook his head, grinning at the sight of Gendry emerging tousle-haired from his chamber and handed him a hunk of bread and cheese.

 

“Let’s be off,” he said. “I fear my sister’s wrath if I don’t deliver you to her soon.”

 

“You’ll quickly learn not to say things like that to him, Jon,” said Davos, wandering into the hall, “The thought of Arya’s wrath makes him get all sappy.”

 

Jon barked out a laugh. “The thought of her _wrath_?” He turned to Gendry. “I’d wondered what she might see in you. I thought maybe it was because she’s always had a soft spot for bastards.”

 

“That and the fact that every time she breathes out a threat, which, lets face it, is most of the time, our Lord here puckers up for a kiss,” Davos replied.

 

Jon kept his eyes on Gendry as if looking for confirmation.

 

Gendry shrugged, his cheeks pink. _No point denying it._

 

“There’s more than that, though, isn’t there,” Jon said softly. “Arya’s hinted at a bit of a long history between you two.”

 

Gendry nodded, warmed by the thought that Arya so much as spoke about him, especially when last he saw her she hadn’t said a word to him. “But if I tell you in front of Davos you’ll only have my bloody corpse to deliver to Winterfell and I won’t even be able to appreciate your sister’s anger.”

 

Jon grinned. “A tale to keep us going on the road then.”

 

Gendry turned to Davos who grabbed him and embraced him fiercely. “I mock you relentlessly about it, I know,” he said gruffly. “But you understand, don’t you, son, that I’m almost as happy as you about all this.”

 

His Lord laughed, warmly embracing Davos in return. “You certainly put on a good show, Davos.”

 

“Maybe its just that I’m quaking in my boots at the thought of that She-Wolf rampaging her way around Storm’s End,” Davos replied. “That doesn’t turn me on in quite the way it does you.”

 

Gendry looked askance at the lady in question’s brother but Jon just looked back at him and laughed.

 

...

 

As they rode through the gates, leaving Storm’s End behind them, Jon gave a low whistle.

 

Ghost materialised beside them and though Gendry has seen plenty of horses stamp and whinny, eyes rolling in the presence of a direwolf, Fury and Winter barely blinked.

 

“These beasts are amazing,” Gendry muttered.

 

“How so?”

 

“Utterly unphased by your wolf for one,” he replied. “And the most intuitive animals I’ve ever encountered. I never was much of a rider, you probably recall. But this horse makes me feel like I’ve always been in the saddle.”

 

“Arya will be pleased to hear that report,” Jon said. “She traded at a high price to get them.”

 

“So you’ve seen her? How is she?” Gendry urged.

 

“Well, obviously I don’t see my sister through the eyes of a lover,” he chuckled and Gendry flushed like a beet.

 

“Not a given in these parts, my friend,” he managed to reply.

 

“Trust me,” Jon snorted. “But she looks well. And that scar from Kings Landing...”

 

“The one on her forehead?”

 

“That’s the one. It’s faded to a silver now. Though I imagine there are plenty of others hidden in places I’ll never see.”

 

Gendry stopped himself before he blurted out that he’d seen some nasty ones, remembering again that it was Arya’s brother riding alongside him.

 

“How does she seem in herself?” Gendry asked. “Did she get what she wanted out of her travels?”

 

Jon grinned. “I like how you ask if Arya got what she wanted. You and I probably know more than most that though it’s not always clear to others what Arya wants, she never stops until she’s got it.”

 

Gendry remembered back to her bloody-minded determination in her youth and smiled proudly. “She’s relentless, isn’t she?”

 

Jon looked at him pointedly. “And it doesn’t worry you at all that now it’s you she’s fixed upon?”

 

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m at her mercy. I have been since I was a boy. But Arya’s the bravest person I know and she’s saved my life more than once.” He chuckled. “It’s sort of nice to think she’ll be the one reaping the benefit of all her hard work in keeping me alive!”

 

“My sister’s pretty noble,” Jon replied. “I’d imagine she was also thinking of the greater good every time she saved your life. And now here you are, Lord of Storm’s End.”

 

Gendry shook his head. “I only accepted it because I thought it might give me a real shot with Arya.”

 

“You didn’t know that she loved you before?”

 

He shrugged. “I can barely believe it now. It seemed impossible when I was just a boy from Flea Bottom.”

 

“If I know my sister, she loved you _because_ of the Flea Bottom in you, not despite it. She’s never been swayed by pomp or circumstance.”

 

Gendry grinned. “I’d have a damned sight less paperwork to do if you and I could have had this little chat earlier.”

 

“Mate,” Jon shrugged sadly, “Back then I was dealing with problems of my own.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There I was, firing off chapters every thirty seconds, and then life got in the way. Sorry for slowing down on you!
> 
> The bromance we always wanted, hey? And more of this to come.


	7. Chapter 7

That night, after they’d made camp alongside the river, secured the horses and got a comfortable fire going, Jon produced an absolute feast.

 

“Courtesy of your kitchens,” he said, souding distinctly impressed as he carved a hunk of meat. “Marya seems to have stepped in and taken good charge of all that.”

 

“Thank the gods,” agreed Gendry. “Don’t know what I’d be doing without that pair by my side. If it weren’t for them, I swear the Southrons would have had me out on my sorry arse moons ago.”

 

“I miss Davos,” Jon admitted. “He was always a good friend. A good advisor too. Bloody loyal.”

 

Gendry nodded emphatically. “Best Hand a Lord could ask for. Truthfully, I mostly think of him as my dad. It’s wishful thinking but he doesn’t seem to mind.”

 

Jon smiled sadly. “I had moments of that myself,” he agreed. “And Davos seems to have similarly adopted you if what I saw back at Storm’s End is anything to go by. He’s proud of you, Gendry, and everything you’ve managed to achieve together.”

 

“Bit of a shambles, really. Poor old South with an apprentice blacksmith for a lord.”

 

“Don’t you go being so hard on yourself, Gendry. Gods, no wonder Arya keeps going on about you being bull-headed.”

 

“She does?” he asked fondly.

 

Jon shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure she always means it to be complimentary.”

 

Gendry chuckled. “She wouldn’t.”

 

“Hells, Davos was right about you, wasn’t he? Anyway, I might not have seen you in action down at Storm’s End, but here’s what I know. You’re a hero, Gendry. You proved yourself to me and to my people time and time again. Don’t go thinking your legitimising was just a powerplay. I only told Dany about who you really were because I wanted to see your bravery and your loyalty honoured. Many a man inherits power, Gendry. You’ve seen what that’s like, it only leads to disaster. But you, Lord Baratheon, you’ve _earned_ this, you know, not by blood, but by bravery and loyalty and distinction. The fucking wheel is broken. There’s rarely been a truer lord than you.”

 

Gendry gazed back at him, his eyes filled with unshed tears. “You mean it, Jon?”

 

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

 

Gendry pushed himself to his feet and Jon did the same.

 

They met beside the flames, pulling one another into a crushing hug.

 

“I know I said ‘Aye’ in that Dragonpit,” Gendry said, eventually pulling away. “But I wish I could still have you as my king, Jon Snow or Aegon Targaryen or whoever in the hells you are. I’d follow you anywhere.”

 

Jon gave his friend a watery laugh.

 

“Besides, you don’t half give a rousing speech.”

 

Jon punched him soundly on the arm and shuffled back to where he was sitting, swiping with his sleeve at the wetness on his cheeks.

 

“How are you, Jon?” Gendry asked gently, after a time of gazing silently into the flames. “I know it must be rough on you, being back on the Watch.”

 

Jon took a moment to respond. “Do you know? I think it’s alright. I’ve made my peace with it now.”

 

“You’re a better man than most, Jon.”

 

“I don’t know about that. I’m not saying I haven’t lost a good deal of sleep over everything that happened, but a man can’t take himself too seriously with Tormund Giantsbane riding by his side, can he?”

 

Gendry chuckled. “He’s not the most reflective of blokes.”

 

“No, he is not. Nor would we want him to be. You know what you’re dealing with with Tormund. Never have I met a less mysterious fellow.”

 

“Is he still pining for Brienne?”

 

Jon laughed. “No more than you for my sister, you know, so I’d be careful not to sound too superior.”

 

“Is he in with a chance do you think?”

 

“Tormund?” Jon snorted. “With Brienne? She’d have to be dead before she’d so much as look at him.”

 

“I notice you chose not to bring him south again.”

 

“That was his choice,” Jon replied. “Not mine. Even Winterfell gets too warm for the likes of him.”

 

“How does Brienne feel about the cold?”

 

Jon chuckled. “You’re almost as persistent as he is! Besides, a good cloak, a good attitude and anyone can be alright out there.”

 

“Not me.” Gendry replied, shivering involuntarily at the thought of those never-ending northern icescapes.

 

Jon glanced over at him then rummaged through their supplies and brought out a skin of something. “Here have a swig of this against the chill. We’ve not even reached The Neck. You’ve been down south too long, my Lord Baratheon.”

 

“One day longer where you two live and I would have frozen my bastard Baratheon balls off,” laughed Gendry. “Not much use for lording then.”

 

“Arya said you’re good at it, the Lord thing,” said Jon.

 

Gendry froze. “She did?”

 

“She definitely did.”

 

“Nice of her to have so much faith in me,” he replied. “But she wouldn’t have the faintest idea what I’m like at it. She’s not been within fifty leagues of Storm’s End since she left Kings Landing.”

 

“Arya’s pretty wily, you know. And she told me all about how you and Davos so diligently looked after all your petitioners, so she must have seen something.”

 

Gendry shook his head. “Why would she have been in Storm’s End and not come to see me?”

 

“She _did_ come to see you.”

 

“I mean… Oh, you know what I mean.”

 

“You mean why wouldn’t she have let _you_ see _her_.”

 

“Exactly!”

 

“Maybe she was looking for the answers to some lingering questions…”

 

“She had lingering questions?”

 

“Better that than complete certainty she wanted nothing to do with you.”

 

“Well, yeah.” Gendry slumped where he sat. “That’s what I thought after we voted Bran as king. She didn’t say a single word to me and then she sailed off on her ship. I assumed I’d probably never see her again. Broke my heart, you know?”

 

“And yet,” laughed Jon, passing him another hunk of meat, “Here I am dragging you to Winterfell-“

 

“-you’re hardly _dragging_ me. Have you ever seen a more willing traveller?”

 

“And we’re bringing her her gown of golden leaves.”

 

“You know about the gown?”

 

“I know everything, _my forest love_.” Jon had a good chuckle over that.

 

“Seven Hells, Jon. Help me! What does it all mean?”

 

Jon shook his head warningly. “I wouldn’t dare speak for Arya. If you want to know what your forest lass requires of you, Gendry, you better bloody well get to Winterfell quicksmart and ask her!”

 

“You’re no help at all,” Gendry muttered.

 

Jon looked at him sympathetically. “She loves you, mate. Think you can be satisfied with that for now?”

 

Gendry grinned into the fire. “That’s more than enough for me.”

 

A moment later his face fell again. “But, Jon, do you think I can be enough for her?”

 

“The whole world’s not enough for Arya,” her brother said simply. “But if she’s chosen to tie herself to you, you must at least make her happy.”

 

“How did a lowborn lump like me win the heart of a woman like her?” Gendry breathed, awestruck.

 

“That’s the story I’ve been waiting for you to tell me since we started out,” Jon held out a hand for for the skin and took a long swig. “We’ve got all night. Don’t spare the details.”

 

Gendry looked back at his friend nervously.

 

“Alright, spare me _some_ of the details. There are certain things a brother would rather not know.”

 

Lord Baratheon nodded, deeply relieved.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am again! Thanks SO MUCH for all the ongoing love!
> 
> In the meantime (as in between last night's chapter and this) it seems I've launched another fully-fledged Gendrya fic into the AO3-sphere (all while achieving some high-level adulting! How long can this last!?)  
> The new one's called "Inky Blue" - Gendry is the heavily tattooed drummer for Westeros’ biggest rock band. Arya is supposed to be a princess but she’s a little too wild to be perpetually kept locked inside a castle.  
> Go read it and let me know if you like it!
> 
> Also, love to know if you like this one! Ahhh, the bromance feels. I am a sucker for this sort of stuff. Give me ALL the hardened blokes, teary eyed and cuddling each other.


	8. Chapter 8

“It’s a bit of a sorry tale, to be true,” Gendry began.

 

Jon shrugged. “History is made of sorry tales. The art is all in the telling.”

 

“I think that Tormund’s been rubbing off on you, mate.”

 

“That’s probably not good. Anyway, on with it.”

 

“You already know about my birth and that I met your father on the Street of Steel.”

 

“Tell me about it,” said Jon quietly. “Gods, I miss him.”

 

Gendry scratched thoughtfully at his whiskers. “I suppose Lord Stark was there to get a look at me, to find out why I’d been so interesting to Jon Arryn, but back then I just thought he was there for Mott’s armour. I’d made this helmet. Stupid it was, but I treasured it at the time. I kept getting called bull-headed. Thought I’d throw it back at them that said it. Fashioned myself some bull’s horns. Polished it day in, day out.”

 

Jon grimaced. “Wear it like armour, and it can never be used to hurt you.”

 

“Exactly,” Gendry nodded. “Anyway, your father seemed to like it. Admired it even. I’ll admit, it made me pretty proud to have impressed the Hand of the King. But all I could tell him was that it wasn’t for sale. Mott had a go at me, wanted me to give it as a gift. I’m glad your dad didn’t press it. My temper still flares up now and again but, back then, sometimes I think was more bull than boy.”

 

“I know a bit about that,” said Jon. “Got me into plenty of trouble. Always put it down to my bastard blood.”

 

“Let’s not go fathering any bastards, you or I,” replied Gendry. “It’s no way for a kid to grow up. And you, you weren’t even-”

 

Jon held up a hand. “Like I said, I’ve made my peace. Besides, it all counts for nothing in the black.”

 

Gendry shrugged. “Anyway, your dad had questions. They make far more sense to me in hindsight than they did at the time. One other thing he said left me with my head held higher.”

 

“What was that?”

 

Gendry looked up at the stars. “I heard the Hand say to Mott, just as he left, he said ‘If the day ever comes when that boy would rather wield a sword than forge one, you send him to me.’ Made me think he’d seen something in _me_ he liked, not just in my work. Something maybe worthwhile. Of course, later I learned it was only because I reminded him of his mate.”

 

Jon laughed. “His _mate_? You mean Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm? That mate?”

 

“Oi, keep quiet, Aegon of the House Targaryen, the Sixth of His Name and all that.”

 

Jon hit him with a well-aimed crust of bread.

 

Gendry chuckled. “I’d hit you back, you know, but I don’t plan on arriving in Winterfell half-starved.”

 

Jon looked back at him seriously. “I don’t think my father made that offer just because you were Robert’s son. When I met you, I could see straight away you were the sort of man I wanted by my side.”

 

“Nice of you to say.”

 

Jon shrugged. “Arya’s determined to marry you anyway. It’s not like I’m trying to butter you up. So you were working for Mott?”

 

“Until he sold me to the Watch.” He was silent a moment. “That hurt, that did. But now I think maybe he wasn’t just casting me off.”

 

“He was getting you out of King’s Landing, protecting you from Cersei.”

 

“At the time it was the only real home I’d known. I was pretty bitter by the time I met Arry. Lucky some other kids were picking on her and not the other way round. They copped my threats instead. Who knows how things might have gone if I’d got on the wrong side of her that first day.”

 

Jon grinned. “And did you believe she was a boy?”

 

“At first - a little one - why else would she be heading to the Wall? Yoren disguised her pretty well. She was my little mate at first. We looked out for each other. When the gold cloaks first came, she told me they were looking for her. Could have knocked me over with a feather when one of them yelled out my name and told about my stupid helmet.”

 

“Were you ever afraid they’d hand you over?”

 

Gendry shook his head. “All the time. No one will sing songs about an old wandering crow like Yoren but if I could be half of what he was to me and Arya, I’d die proud.”

 

“How did you get away from them?”

 

“After they got Yoren, it was Arya that saved me. One of our little mates, Lommy, must have put on my helmet to protect himself. Didn’t stop him from getting an arrow in his leg. They put him down like a dog. When they stood us all together, demanding we hand over this Gendry, Arya pointed at Lommy, dead, my helmet on the ground beside him.”

 

Jon nodded, a proud smile on his face. “She thinks quick does Arya.”

 

“Thank the gods,” Gendry agreed. “They took us all to Harrenhal and, true to form, I nearly got myself killed again. It was only the arrival of Tywin Lannister that saved us all that time. I started smithing, Arya became his cup bearer and it was generally awful until Arya hatched some deal with this guy, Jaqen H'ghar, that to this day I don’t pretend to understand. Anyway, she got us out, and we were trying to get to her family at Riverrun, but we only got ourselves captured again, this time by Beric and Thoros and the rest of the Brotherhood Without Banners.

They’d gotten hold of Clegane and, of course, he recognised Arya and told them who she was. As for myself, I didn’t hate the idea of the Brotherhood. I thought I might stay on and smith for them. Arya wasn’t very impressed.”

 

“Sounds like that’s putting it lightly.”

 

Gendry nodded. “I was so naive, Jon. I loved the idea of being part of a band of blokes looking out for one another and I was sick to the eye-teeth of serving. I said as much to Arya, told her I liked the idea of having a family, never having known that before. She told me then that she could be my family. The best offer I’d ever been made. But the bastard blood was boiling in my ears. I was all hung up on my lot in life. I knew a high born like her could never be my family, not really. It ripped my heart out to say it and when I did, I worried I might have ripped hers out as well.

Then what happens the very next day? The fucking brotherhood sells me to the Red Woman, and if its all the same to you, I’d rather not talk about what happened after that.”

 

“I heard hints of it when we were walking north,” Jon said quietly.

 

Gendry rubbed at the back of his neck looking sheepish. “I suppose I was sort of yelling about it to Beric and Thoros.”

 

“And that was the last you saw Arya?”

 

“Until I rode into Winterfell with you. Her watching me be taken off in the back of that rickety old cart had haunted me all that time,” he said sadly. “So much for brotherhood.”

 

“But that’s how you met Davos.”

 

Gendry smiled. “My first true brother.”

 

“And he brought you to me.” Jon grinned. “I think my little sister’s coming good on that offer she made you at last.”

 

“I got a shock when I saw her again at Winterfell.” Gendry interlocked his fingers behind his head and once more gazed up at the stars. “I could barely string a coherent sentence together. She swanned into that forge, a woman grown and _beautiful_ , and I nearly lost my head.”

 

“I like how Davos teases you about it. She breathes a threat and you swoon.”

 

Gendry chuckled. “Sometimes I worry he’s not that far from the truth!” He shook his head. “It’s not that though. Seeing her be such a fighter, seeing her so strong - I’m so fucking proud of her I could burst! So what if it turns me on?”

 

Jon coughed politely. “Remember those details you were going to leave out?”

 

Gendry looked bashful. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “I’ll keep all that to myself then.”

 

“Appreciated.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Just found the original start to this chapter lurking elsewhere in my notes. This is what comes of typing fanfic into your phone. So it's a bit different now but only at the start.
> 
> Told you there'd be more bromance! And I remember everyone saying they wanted this conversation to happen in S8 but it never did so I hope this helps some hearts to heal? Maybe? If my version is satisfactory? Well, it helped me, anyway.
> 
> Hope you've found your way to Inky Blue - there is (or will be soon) more bromance! And there are motorbikes if that helps?


	9. Chapter 9

Fury picked a careful path through the marshy terrain approaching Greywater Watch. Gendry idly wondered whether he’d have a chance to properly groom Winter before Arya saw her. The elegant mare had flecks of viscous Riverland mud all over her gleaming white legs and dotting her silvery tail.

 

He looked over his shoulder to see Jon looking half asleep in the saddle.

 

Their recently acquired travelling companion, an eager-to-please lad of about sixteen, tagged along behind on his flighty grey pony. Timm Rivers had helped them out of a spot of difficulty at the Ruby Ford, leading them to the nearest smithy to get a new horseshoe for Fury. When they’d introduced themselves to him as Jon Snow and Gendry Waters (he’d decided to leave out the Baratheon bit for travelling), the young man had beamed at them - a brotherless boy amongst brotherless brothers.

 

In thanks, Jon had offered Timm a meal, Gendry had asked where he was headed, and before they knew it, their party of two had become three with permission granted for him to tag along with them until they reached his destination nearer to Moat Cailin. So grateful was he to be taken into the company of two men he clearly deemed worthy of his honour, Timm looked for any opportunity to fetch water, carry wood, light fires and assist in whatever way he could. He was perpetually cheerful, chattering pleasantly when the older men asked him questions and respectfully keeping his peace when conversation petered out.

 

Gendry felt almost guilty, having accidentally acquired a manservant, but he and Jon ensured that they always expressed their gratitude and made clear that none of the duties Timm had taken upon himself were assumed by them to be his sole responsibility. It felt nice in a way, to take a boy so similar to himself as a young man under his wing. He vividly remembered his own confusion and anger at Timm’s age and how he had come alive in the rare moments of positive attention he’d received from older men that he respected.

 

Timm’s story was not unlike his own. Fatherhood uncertain, mother dead when he was little, it seemed he had lived by his wits alone for a good long time. But where in Gendry a bitterness had hardened that worked itself out in anger, Timm seemed remarkably unscathed by his lot, if a little starved for attention and affection.

 

One night as he tended their merry fire, Timm asked why they were travelling north.

 

“I can guess for you, Jon” he said, indicating the black of the watch. “But what about you, Gendry. What has you trekking all that way?”

 

Jon answered before he could speak. “Gendry, poor bloke, has fallen in love with my little sister. She’s fearsome as the fires of all seven of the hells and she’s decided she wants him.”

 

“Hang on,” said Timm, “You have a sister? How’s that work?”

 

Jon blew out a long breath. “I don’t even know how to tell you my story. Short version is, I’m one of the luckier bastards, raised by a family that mostly loved me. I had a man to call Father, though he was not my father, and his children became my brothers and sisters.”

 

Timm nodded slowly, as if still processing this information, and turned to Gendry. “So did Jon introduce you to his sister?”

 

Gendry shook his head. “It’s been a long war, Timm. Nothing happened like that the way it should have.”

 

Jon yawned widely. “You know what, Gendry? You’ve been dying for an audience for the whole wretched tale, I can tell. I’m going to get some sleep. If you two stay up chattering about love all night, on your own heads be it. We’re still leaving at dawn.”

 

Gendry laughed and filled Timm in on the bits Jon already knew while he pottered about finding himself a place to sleep, close enough to and yet far enough away from the fire.

 

When they heard his snores from the spot where he lay, Timm seized his chance to ask questions. “I’ve never had no one to ask about love and courting and such.”

 

Gendry snorted. “I’m no expert, Timm! And Arya’s not your typical girl, that’s for sure.”

 

“What’s she really like? Can you tell me now that her brother’s asleep? Is she really that terrifying?”

 

Gendry knew his whole face turned soft just at the thought of her. “Arya Stark,” he said quietly. “I mean, yes, she is terrifying, and I’d never want to underestimate her, but she’s not traditionally frightening. Not like a wight or a bear or anything like that.”

 

Timm laughed, relieved. “Are _you_ frightened of her then?”

 

Gendry thought a moment. “I am a bit frightened by the power she has to break my heart,” he admitted. “And then I’m sort of frightened that if all this really does turn out to be real, and she really does want to marry me, that later she’ll realise she made a mistake and regret it.”

 

“Why would marrying you be a mistake?”

 

“She’s a highborn,” he said simply. “And I’m just a bastard. But learn from my mistakes and be careful not to suggest she’s a lady if you should ever get to meet her.”

 

“So if she’s a highborn lady and you’re a lowborn bastard, why should she even consider you?”

 

“Exactly.” Gendry nodded emphatically.

 

Timm scratched his head.“You’ve lost me.”

 

“Look,” said Gendry. “Don’t get too excited about this but my name’s not actually Gendry Waters any more.”

 

“It isn’t?” asked Timm, patently confused. “Who are you then?”

 

“Don’t tell anyone we meet on the road, okay, not that they’d ask I suppose, but it turns out I’m actually Gendry Baratheon. I still never knew my dad and I’m no more legitimate in all the ways that probably mean anything, but I fought with the Dragon Queen before she turned mad and burned King’s Landing and she legitimised me. She even gave me my real father’s old holdfast. I’m the Lord of Storm’s End now.”

 

Timm nodded, wide-eyed. “ _Now_ I see why Jon’s sister wants to marry you.”

 

Gendry laughed. “No, mate. That’s not it at all. But I made exactly the same mistake.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness, it appears I'm doing nothing but writing Gendrya fic these days!  
> Hope you like this! Love to hear from you if you do!
> 
> Keep an eye out for my two AU WIPs if you're in need of more Gendrya:
> 
> Inky Blue - ch 7 of 8 just went up a few hours ago - Rock Drummer/Princess AU
> 
> Head of the River - ch 1 soon to be posted - School Principal/Head Rowing Coach AU


	10. Chapter 10

Timm watched Gendry eagerly until he continued with his story.

 

“Here’s how it was. First time I saw Arya after years and years apart, mind you, me thinking she was dead, her probably thinking I was dead - just the sight of her almost actually killed me. I just stood there gaping at her, trying to fathom how that slip of a kid I’d left behind had become this incredibly beautiful woman.”

 

“So she’s beautiful?”

 

Gendry grinned. “Gods, yes. I’ve never laid eyes on another woman like her. She’s got dark hair and these grey eyes and she’s tiny actually, for someone so powerful. I get all a bit useless around her truthfully. Which is deadly, of course, ‘cause she was always sneaking up on me in the forge, but I think I’ve mostly covered it up so far.”

 

Timm chuckled. “You really are in love with her, aren’t you?”

 

“Didn’t I already say that? Pay attention! Anyway, don’t tell Jon, he’d probably kill me but, imagine this, Timm. You’re me, a lowborn bastard who, thanks to the kindness of others, has had the opportunity to develop a bit of skill in the forge. The woman you’ve loved since childhood comes in, there she is, out of the blue, there’s a big battle about to begin and she asks you to make her a weapon. You can’t imagine why she’d need it but you agree anyway. She comes back the next day, to see if you’ve made it yet, which, of course you haven’t because you’re practically single-handedly trying to arm everyone else with dragon glass - tricky stuff to work with, long story, let’s not get bogged down.

She just watches you, right? But like, a bit sort of _appreciatively_ , know what I mean? She’s watching me, I’m watching her - it’s all a bit, I don’t know, a bit heated somehow between us. She’s being a bit irritating, you know? But like it’s on purpose. She’s trying to get a rise out of me. I’m trying not to bite, Timm, honestly, I am.

I’ve sworn to fight with Jon and I want to be of use to these blokes who’ve been good to me and I want to make a difference in this war, you know? For everyone’s sake. But with Arya right in front of me, all scary weapons and coquettish raised eyebrows and the like, I sort of get a bit torn. She comes closer and asks me about the wights. I’d already fought them, see? And she hadn’t seen any yet.

I tell her the truth, that they’re like death. That they terrify the life out of me, though I might have played that down to try and seem tough in front of this woman who has just completely bamboozled me. Anyway, picture it - then she starts throwing these knives-“

 

“-Why? What did you do that made her want to throw knives at you?” asked Timm urgently.

 

“No, not _at_ me, mate. She was throwing them at a target - one and then the other and then another - all hitting precisely the same spot. She was wanting me to see that she could handle herself, that I had to take her seriously and make her the weapon she wanted.”

 

“And did you?”

 

“Did I ever. I made it the best I could. And it was silly maybe, but that night I went and had a wash, and I put on my cleanest clothes, and I went to find her to give it to her. I wanted to see if maybe we might be able to have a bit more of a chat. Anything to be near her, you know?”

 

Tim nodded, clearly caught up in the tale. “Did she like the weapon?”

 

“Well, I give it to her and she gives it a bit of a once over, then she starts spinning it like she’s never not had it in her hands. You’re me, mate. Wouldn’t you be a bit, I don’t know, _excited_ , maybe? To watch this woman you once only wanted to protect, looking like some sort of goddess of righteous fury twirling a weapon you made her with such surety and skill and-“

 

“-So is that when you asked her to marry you?”

 

Gendry grinned. “No, but it’s nice that that’s the question that occurred to you to ask at this point because it makes me think you could understand how I found myself feeling the way I was feeling, even though there was an extremely pointy dragon glass weapon involved.

Anyway, I’m a gentleman and I’m not going to be going into lurid detail but she starts questioning me about what girls I’d been with before, how many and the like.”

 

Timm looked at him wide-eyed. “How many girls _have_ you been with?”

 

“Well, I tell you in that moment, it was the last thing I wanted to admit to, but I’d been with three. Just girls that used to hang around sometimes when I was working on the Street of Steel. I was a man by then and, you know, it was sort of expected. I made sure I was nice to them. I never wanted to be one of those blokes that takes advantage, but I’ll admit I never loved any of them. Knowing Arya had sort of ruined me for other girls. None of them ever seemed all that appealing to me. They never wanted to be my friend like she had been. They only wanted me for, well-,” he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Truthfully, I don’t even know what they wanted.”

 

“Then what happened?”

 

“She says, Timm, - and I will take this memory with me to the grave-.” Gendry glanced over to where Jon was sleeping and lowered his voice to a whisper. “She says, ‘We’re probably going to die soon. I ought to know what it’s like before that happens.’”

 

Timm gazed at him, eyes full of awe. “You’re joking.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Then what?”

 

Gendry shook his head. “I won’t say any more. Well, no more than that it was the best night of my life.”

 

“And _then_ you asked her to marry you?”

 

“The battle happened first,” said Gendry quietly.

 

“What was that like?”

 

“Hell.” Gendry shuddered. “But Arya saved us all. She ended it. She was the hero.”

 

“Arya?” Timm asked astounded. “The woman you love was the hero?”

 

“Yep,” said Gendry proudly. “She was the warrior that defeated the worst of all our enemies.”

 

“And she didn’t die and you didn’t die, so now you can get married!”

 

“That’s what I was thinking at the time,” Gendry agreed. “And on top of that, Queen Daenerys legitimised me - made me Gendry Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End.”

 

“What did Arya think of that?”

 

“She wasn’t even in the hall when it got announced. In fact, I only came to the Queen’s attention that night because I was sneaking out trying to find her.”

 

“And what happened when you did find her?”

 

Gendry gave another sigh. “Remember, I’d left Arya once, and she’d hated me for it, because I couldn’t stand the thought of having to be always serving around her when she was free. I wanted to love her, not to have to call her milady and bow and scrape but I could never see that happening. It could never be possible between us. So when I was given a name and suddenly, unexpectedly, put on the same footing as her, it all seemed so clear. I was bubbling over with ale and excitement and not dying, I suppose, and I rushed straight out of that hall to find her. I think I’d maybe said ten words before I told her I loved her and asked her to marry me. If I could take back any five minutes of my life, I think it would be those.”

 

“How would you have done it differently if you could?” Timm asked sympathetically.

 

“I don’t know, mate. I really don’t know. I wouldn’t have used the word ‘lady’, that’s for sure. But maybe it wasn’t such a terrible mistake if what Jon says is true and she’s decided she’s going to marry me anyway.”

 

Timm gave a low whistle and shook his head. “What’s it going to be like to be married to her then? Will she come to Storm’s End with you?”

 

Gendry sighed. “Well, that’s another thing I don’t know. I’m hoping so. I can’t very well up and leave it, can I?”

 

“I don’t know,” Timm replied. “Could you?”

 

“I thought about it at first. I really did, almost every day. I’m just Gendry Waters, that’s who I’ve always been, nothing special about me. The only appeal the name had for me was what it might mean to Arya. When it turned out to mean nothing at all, or worse than nothing, my first thought was to walk away from it.”

 

“Why didn’t you?”

 

He shrugged. “Because I like to be useful, you know? I’ve spent my whole life taking lumps of metal and beating them into things that serve a purpose, that contribute. Storm’s End has had a rough few years. I wanted to see if maybe I could be useful to the Stormlanders. I have a Hand, Davos, who is the best man of them all. He’s teaching me all he can. He’s even taught me to read and write. It didn’t feel right to just walk away from it all.”

 

“What if Arya says you have to walk away from it to marry her?”

 

Gendry scratched at his whiskers. “Well, that will be a pretty severe test of my character.”

 

Timm yawned as he nodded.

 

“Maybe time for some sleep, eh mate? Jon’s a hard master when it comes to getting on the road.”

 

The two of them shuffled around getting ready for a while and finally settled down to rest.

 

As Gendry was drifting off he heard Timm say, “You’re a good man, Gendry. I think it’s all going to be alright with you and Arya.”

 

“I hope so, lad,” he murmured, rolling over. “I want to be with her more than anything in the world.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, lovely readers!


	11. Chapter 11

 

Gendry woke in the early dawn to find himself with a mouthful of fur. He yanked his head back, puffing and spitting, until he realised that lying close beside him was the warm body of an enormous wolf.

 

He had watched Ghost warily from a distance before, but he’d never felt safe enough to get any closer. He hadn’t realise the giant beast had even acknowledged his existence let alone harboured a desire to cuddle up to him.

 

He supposed he had no reason to believe Ghost would hurt him. It didn’t stop him from holding himself so still he barely breathed.

 

Suddenly he saw Jon’s wolf’s white muzzle loom over him and the huge beast beside him, looking down.

 

That meant that the direwolf lying beside him was _not_ Ghost.

 

“Gendry?” Jon’s voice was low and fearful. “Keep still and don’t make a sound.”

 

He heard Jon whistling softly and Ghost’s head disappeared from view.

 

The enormous form beside him suddenly shifted away and he felt the loss of the warmth.

 

“Nymeria!” he heard Jon gasp.

 

The direwolf elegantly raised herself to her feet, her eyes on Jon and Ghost, and Gendry trembled to see how high off the ground she was on all fours.

 

She swung her head and her grey and white face turned to where he lay tense on the ground, observing him with a cool regard. She lowered her snout towards him and he clenched his eyes tight, feeling her warm breath on his neck as she grew nearer to his vulnerable flesh.

 

Was she about to tear out his throat?

 

Instead of teeth and ripping, he felt a rough wetness swipe his cheek. The wolf was licking him, nuzzling at him. It felt affectionate but no less terrifying.

 

He slowly reached up a tentative hand to stroke her head and she pushed herself playfully into his fingers as if nudging him to lavish more attention on her. Gendry carefully scratched behind her ear and she whimpered softly, leaning down to give him another lick.

 

Behind them, he heard Jon start to laugh. “By the gods,” he chuckled. “That wolf has claimed you for her own, Lord Baratheon.”

 

Gendry carefully sat up, finding that even seated on the ground, his head was only just as high as hers.

 

“But we haven’t even been introduced,” he said softly, reaching the other hand up so that he scratched the wolf behind both of her ears. She raised her snout and closed her eyes, standing still to enjoy his ministrations. At the sight of her contented, all his terror melted away.

 

“Gendry,” Jon said, “Meet Nymeria. She’s Arya’s direwolf.”

 

“Arya’s?” he asked. “I never knew Arya had a Ghost of her own.”

 

“I found the litter,” said Jon, “When we were but children. The mother had been killed but there was a pup there for each of us.”

 

“So this lovely lady is Ghost’s sister,” Gendry said quietly.

 

“She is,” Jon confirmed. “Though as far as I knew, Arya had had to send her away. She’d returned to the wild, or so I understood it.”

 

Gendry found himself feeling protective of the enormous animal chasing his scratches. “She doesn’t seem wild to me,” he said gently. “She’s as lovely and soft as a baby rabbit.”

 

Jon laughed again. “Said like a man who finds my sister more beautiful than scary. Let’s see what happens when you try to get up.”

 

Gendry did as Jon suggested, slowly getting to his feet. When he was upright he realised the animal’s haunches stood as high as his midriff and felt another wave of fear.

 

Nymeria gently pushed her head under his hand as if prompting him to pet her again and leaned her weight possessively against his leg.

 

“Yep, you’ve been claimed, mate,” Jon said, grinning. “Looks like you’re part of her pack now, whether you like it or not.”

 

“And are you and Ghost in this pack of hers?” he asked just as Ghost made his way back from Jon’s side to Nymeria’s. The two wolves nuzzled one another as if in answer to Gendry’s question.

 

Jon just smiled. “Arya would like to see this.”

 

The horses stood calmly watching on, utterly unconcerned in the presence of the massive beasts. Gendry suddenly looked around. “Where’s Timm?”

 

Jon shrugged. “He was gone when I woke up this morning. All his stuff gone too.”

 

Gendry looked fearfully at the wolves. “They- they wouldn’t have eaten him, would they, Jon?”

 

Jon chuckled and jerked his head toward the well-stoked fire. “I doubt he would have been able to cook such a nice breakfast for us if they had.”

 

Gendry saw a couple of rabbits on sticks in the fire and felt a little bit melancholy. “I liked him,” he said simply. “Hope he’s going to be alright. And I’d decided over night to tell him to come to Storm’s End with me, see if I couldn’t set him up with a job.”

 

“Well, I suppose he must have had other places to be,” said Jon. “Breakfast?”

 

Gendry nodded, sitting on a log Timm had placed by the fire the night before and accepting one of the sticks from Jon.

 

Nymeria immediately stretched herself out at his feet and he threw her a leg, trying not to watch the steel snap of her jaw as she devoured it, flesh and bone alike.

 

“I suppose he does know who I am,” he said, trying to comfort himself. “I hope he’d be sure that I’d welcome him if he ever travelled south.”

 

The two men and the two direwolves sat in silence by the fire enjoying their generous feast.

 

When Gendry finished eating, he threw the rest to the wolf at his feet and she swallowed what remained of the carcass in one go. He held himself very still as she stood to lick the juices from his fingers.

 

Jon laughed at him across the fire. “Never take her for granted will you,” he said. “The loyalty of a direwolf has kept me alive.”

 

Gendry suddenly thought to get to his feet and look about him. “If this is Arya’s direwolf,” he said, “Does that mean Arya’s somewhere nearby?”

 

“Not necessarily,” he said, “But it’s not impossible, I suppose. Though I thought she’d be waiting for us at Winterfell.”

 

“And I thought she’d be sailing into the great unknown but it turned out she was hiding in plain sight, listening to me bumble my way through petitions at Storm’s End.”

 

“Maybe it was Arya who took Timm,” Jon suggested. “Found some use for him and left you Nymeria so you still had someone to listen to you pouring your heart out about her.”

 

Gendry didn’t even have to bend down to scratch behind Nymeria’s ear. “Nice to know I’ll have someone who’s interested in talking about the important things.”

 

“Come on then,” said Jon. “I wanted to be off at dawn and you’re still dawdling.”

 

“Nymeria doesn’t like to be accused of dawdling, Jon,” said Gendry. “I’d watch yourself if I were you.”

 

“Five minutes with a wolf by your side and look how cocky you get.”

 

Gendry laughed. “Well, it is a bit of a boost, isn’t it? Knowing you’ve got a friend who could rip someone’s throat out.”

 

“A wolf to match your wife,” Jon joked. “The future looks bloody!”

 

Gendry grinned. “Well, ours is the fury and all that.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love that I had so many of you speculating after the last chapter! Not sure if this confirms or denies your theories?  
> Love to hear what you think!


	12. Chapter 12

The days went by slowly and became increasingly chilly as they gradually grew nearer to Winterfell. Gendry was thankful for the heavy cloak Arya had sent him.

 

The nights fit a familiar pattern of some conversation over a meal by the fire before Jon and Gendry settled their patient, long-suffering horses and rested their weary bodies. Nymeria’s warmth by his side was more and more welcome as the nights grew colder and Gendry looked forward to finally reaching their destination, not least because he was impatient to see Arya again.

 

Bedding down under a full moon was always a challenge. The landscape around them was lit almost as brightly as the day.

 

Gendry had finally drifted off to sleep but felt himself jolted into alertness when Nymeria suddenly leapt to her feet, reacting to sounds only she could hear.

 

She padded off somewhere and Gendry immediately missed her warmth. He tried to roll over and resettle the cloak over him but the earth was hard and cold beneath him and several months in rich furs on a feather bed had perhaps made him soft.

 

Sensing sleep would evade him for a little while yet, he got up to try and stoke up the fire. Once he had a merry blaze with which to warm himself, he glanced about to see if Nymeria were anywhere nearby.

 

What he saw instead almost made him cry out.

 

The petite figure was unmistakeable.

 

“Arya?” he whispered.

 

Her dark hair gleamed in the light of the moon. She wore the same brown leather jerkin and fur lined cape over her quilted grey wool tunic that last he’d seen her in, a brown leather satchel slung over one shoulder.

 

She came nearer. Nymeria was at her side.

 

He looked over to where Jon lay sleeping on the other side of the fire. He didn’t stir.

 

“Hello, Gendry,” she said softly.

 

He suddenly felt like weeping. “That’s the first time I’ve heard my name on your lips in years.”

 

She gave him a small smile and drew nearer still.

 

He stood, but didn’t feel that he’d been granted permission to approach her.

 

“Have you ever considered, Gendry,” she paused, watching him a moment, “that I might have said no to you that night for your own sake?”

 

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Arya,” he replied. “I’m just- _gods_ … It’s so wonderful to see you.”

 

He moved forward, wanting to take her in his arms but she held up a single hand and he halted.

 

“What if I told you I wouldn’t marry you because there were terrible things inside me? Terrible things you could never imagine.”

 

Gendry shook his head. “We’ve both seen and done terrible things. That’s what happens in war.”

 

She let the satchel slide from her shoulder and tossed it at his feet.

 

He dropped to his knees to open it. What he felt when he slipped his hand inside it caused him to immediately yank it back out again.

 

Arya was watching him coolly.

 

He steeled himself and tipped up the bag, scattering its contents on the dirt by the fire.

 

“These are…” He couldn’t quite bring himself to finish the sentence.

 

“My faces,” she said calmly.

 

But they were nothing like her elven face. Flimsy, leathery, like skin to the touch and yet lifeless - nothing like skin at all.

 

The first face he really managed to fix his gaze on was somehow familiar. It was that of the woman who had come to Storm’s End bringing Fury and Winter.

 

Then there were others - men, women, all different ages.

 

The last face his eyes settled on was Timm’s.

 

Gendry had to look away. “Arya, I don’t understand.”

 

“Like I said,” her voice crackled with revulsion, “you could never imagine.”

 

She suddenly lunged forward, grabbing a handful of faces and hurled them into the flames.

 

Turning again, scrabbling in the dirt at his feet, she grasped those that remained and threw them on to the fire also.

 

Arya stood and watched them shrivel and burn in the heat, her slight form wracked with sobs.

 

Gendry reached out for her, tentatively touching her shoulder.

 

Her first instinct was to shrink away from him, watching the flames intently as they consumed the awful weight she’d been carrying.

 

“I become them,” she said, her voice hollow. “Take on their forms, their voices.”

 

“Who are they?” he asked.

 

“Who _were_ they, you mean. People I killed, people others killed.”

 

Gendry felt a flicker of grief for Timm but then he remembered Jon telling him Arya had seen him at Storm’s End.

 

“Timm… That was you?” he asked.

 

She nodded.

 

He thought of the conversation they’d had - the questions Timm had asked, the answers he’d given. He’d never guessed Arya could need so much reassurance.

 

“This is Jaqen H'ghar’s magic, isn’t it?” said Gendry. “You saw him again.”

 

She nodded.

 

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked gently.

 

Arya shook her head. “But I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know in case…”

 

“In case it scared me away?”

 

“Does it?” The question was little more than a breath.

 

“It does scare me, Arya,” he admitted. “Everything about you scares me. But that doesn’t stop me from loving you, from wanting to be with you.”

 

He reached for her again and this time she let him touch her, let him carefully wrap his arms around her.

 

“I haven’t forgotten being scared,” Gendry said, “because I don’t think I’ve ever really felt safe, not for most of my life. And you haven’t had much of a chance to feel safe either.”

 

She shook her head against his chest, snaking her arms around his waist.

 

“Do you know what I’ve found hardest to learn in the peace?” Arya asked.

 

She pulled back to look at him, her damp eyes hard like armour. “You’ll laugh.”

 

“I won’t laugh, Arya,” he said earnestly.

 

“I am a woman, not a wolf.”

 

Her grey eyes bored into him and he held her gaze.

 

“You’re not going to laugh, Gendry?” she demanded. “Isn’t it so obvious? Why would I ever believe I was a wolf? It’s ludicrous. But I started repeating it to myself over and over, in place of my list. I do it even now. I am a woman not a wolf, I am a woman not a wolf.”

 

She dared him with her gaze. “You don’t want to joke about how you could have told me long ago that I wasn’t a wolf?”

 

Gendry looked back at her, knowing he had no defences up and hoping desperately that he wouldn’t need them.

 

“I’m not making any jokes, Arya. I know you wanted to be a wolf - your sigil, your pack. I’m not laughing now and I’m not about to start.”

 

As if finally accepting that he wasn’t going to belittle her, her eyes grew tender, her voice lost its steel. “It was you, actually, that helped me see.”

 

“Me?” he asked softly.

 

“Gendry, I know it’s hard to believe, but I saw you in Storm’s End. I saw you transformed into their Lord because you could do good and you wanted to do good. And it occurred to me that I could do the same. And then I saw you again, in the Riverlands, as one of your own, and you took me in and fed me and told me of your love and your admiration for Arya Stark. I barely recognised the person you were describing. I came each time to give you a gift, but it was you who gave the gifts to me.”

 

“What gifts?”

 

“You set me free from what I thought you expected of me and, in doing that, you set me free from what I had been expecting of myself. I don’t have to always roam, I don’t have to be tied to an idea of what is and isn’t me. I don’t have to be defined by what was formed in my childhood and reinforced by every awful thing that’s happened since.”

 

“That’s right,” he said, nodding. “You don’t.”

 

“When I was at sea I realised that I didn’t need you to retract your proposal. I knew what you meant from the start. You wanted me to be with you, as pure and simple as that.” She suddenly smiled. “It’s only because you’re a total dunderhead that you believed you couldn’t offer me that without having a name for yourself.”

 

At this, Gendry did laugh and gave her a little bow. “Lord Dunderhead at your service.”

 

Nymeria padded over and pushed her muzzle between them.

 

“When I stepped onto dry land,” she went on, still smiling softly, “Nymeria was somehow there to meet me. Long ago, just after Hot Pie first told me that Jon had been made King in the North she’d found me in the woods. I thought then that maybe she’d kill me. I’d told her I was going home, asked her to come with me.” She ruffled the direwolf’s fur. “But she just melted back into the woods and it almost broke my heart. I knew then, after I’d been through so much horror, she was just being what I wanted to be - free, unshackled. I remember whispering after her ‘That’s not you’ and saying it with admiration.”

 

“Those are the words you said to me,” Gendry replied wryly. “About being the Lady of Storm’s End. That’s not me.”

 

“But I can be whatever I want to be,” she said, as if Gendry were the one arguing. “And I don’t need those horrible faces to change my lot.”

 

“You’re a woman, not a wolf,” he said smiling.

 

“Besides,” she replied, scratching behind Nymeria’s ear, “It seems my wolf has decided she’d rather stick close to my Lord.”

 

Gendry let out a long breath. He’d been called ‘My Lord’ by plenty of people, almost enough to get used to it, but it was quite something else coming from Arya.

 

“My Lord Baratheon,” she said quietly, as if reading his mind, “I wonder if I might belatedly accept the kind offer you made me when last we were at Winterfell.”

 

“You don’t want it, Arya,” he heard himself say, and he knew his own words to be true. “You don’t want to be the Lady of Storm’s End.”

 

“Oh, but I do,” she argued, pressing herself up on her toes. “As long it means being with you.”

 

Her hands tenderly cupping his face as she kissed him were simultaneously reminiscent of ecstasy and heartbreak.

 

In their few intimate encounters, Gendry felt he was always torn between talking and kissing. She barely paused for breath before his questions rained out of him.

 

“What does it mean then, that you’re a woman not a wolf? What does that mean for you, Arya?”

 

She laughed against his lips. “You’ve always talked enough for the both of us.”

 

“I just want to understand. I want to be what you need,” he insisted. “Tell me? Please?”

 

Arya sighed, gently tracing the closing of his cloak with her finger. “It means I can love with my whole heart again. It means I can settle down somewhere without having to have one foot out the door. It means I can choose to have a gown of golden leaves made for myself and wear it for a day and enjoy swishing about in it and then put on my trousers again the next. I can use my weapons for food and protection rather than war and revenge. I can become your wife, Gendry, and love you and give birth to our babies and love them if we think we might want some one day. It means I want to help you, to be by your side, and I will even graciously answer to Lady Stark or Lady Baratheon or whatever it is that I need to be called instead of biting people’s heads off, because that is who I am choosing to be and if it is my choice, no one can take it from me.”

 

Gendry’s heart was full. Fuller than it had ever been before.

 

“Will you stay with me tonight?” he whispered.

 

“For more talking? Or…?” There was a challenge twinkling in her eyes.

 

He caught his bottom lip between his teeth, casting an anxious glance over to where Jon still lay sleeping. If he hadn’t wanted to _hear_ any details, he certainly wouldn’t appreciate waking up and witnessing them.

 

Arya followed his gaze, smiling softly at her brother. “I won’t stay,” she whispered back. “Hate him to think he travelled all that way to fetch you for nothing.”

 

“But I’ll see you soon?” Gendry asked urgently, tightening his hold on her.

 

She reached up to kiss him again, her lips soft against his. “I’ll relieve you of my horse and my gown,” she said, “And my circlet of grass if that’s alright. I’ll be needing them soon.”

 

She stepped toward where Winter was tethered but Gendry grabbed her hand.

 

“Arya,” he whispered, “How do I know I’m not dreaming?”

 

“Because when you wake, you’ll be missing a horse,” she said smiling. “And when you come to Winterfell, I’ll be waiting.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END!
> 
> Ten gold stars to the people who picked the faces! I wanted to set it up a little bit but not so much that you all totally saw it coming! Obvs I failed… I was too obvs! And I liked how someone said “I’m kinda hoping it’s not Arya. That would mean she’d have to have taken this boy’s life, and I’m hoping she’s over that phase.” So this was to try and show that, yes, she is over that very creepy phase and hopefully moving into a more human future with Gendry!
> 
> I’m so sorry, you lovely things, but I’m going to leave it here for now only because I just feel like it’s really hard to write Arya convincingly! The idea of her in a modern AU is one thing, but I don’t feel like I can quite do her justice in a canon-esque thing! Maybe when I feel more confident with her voice I could come back and write a part two of this. It was always the Gendry/Davos, Gendry/Jon dynamic I wanted to write and the Gendry/Arya relationship I wanted to explore through their voices but, oh, I know it’s pathetic, she herself is HARD! And trying to bring her believably into Ladying It Up at Storm’s End is HARD! But given that this was only ever going to be the first chapter and Arya was only ever going to be just a mention, I hope it's a nice surprise that it ballooned out to this!?
> 
> By way of consolation, I point you to something someone else has written that I loved and that I feel might ease the pain of me chickening out. If you haven't already had the joy, do yourself a favour and look up The Tilt by acornsandravens here on AO3. It will give you almost everything you want, I promise, even if it is not precisely set in canon.
> 
> Aaaanyway, thank you SO much for reading and reviewing and being generally delightful. Who knows, I might be back with Part 2 next week? It might take a year, it might never happen!
> 
> If you think you might like my Modern AU Arya, you might like Inky Blue (all finished and done), and you might also like to look out for Head of the River, coming soon!
> 
> Love to hear what you thought of this if you feel inclined to drop a little comment. Comment grubbing is so inelegant I know. Forgive me!
> 
> EDIT! This is the fic you want to read - https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274161/   
> it's called "sing more absurd" by scintillio_coll and I promise, this is the fic I'm sure you were all hoping this one would turn out to be. SO beautiful!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for this fandom so I'd love to know if it met with your approval!? 
> 
> I have seriously fallen down a Gendry Waters rabbit hole but I need to get back to my FitzSimmons shippers (Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) ASAP so I'm HOPING this one will cure me and I can head on back. Even as a type that, I KNOW I am going to find my way back here writing Arya flipping arriving at Storm's End but it has been done so well by so many others surely no one needs to read another take on it?
> 
> And in a weak moment I DID write a modern AU in which G&A were musicians and it felt totally ridiculous until I heard a certain actor singing (look it up on Spotify "Anyone Can Change" from "Been So Long" - that's him right at the beginning of the song!) and it suddenly felt a lot more plausible than it had done originally. So who knows, maybe that one might make an appearance. 
> 
> And I am constantly scheming up an "Arya is a corporate big wig who needs a dog nanny for Nymeria - hello Gendry" fic.
> 
> It's not just the title of this fic that is doomed, is it... IT IS ALSO ME WHO IS DOOMED!!!
> 
> I'm not even gonna plug this on tumblr so as not to pollute the purity of my blog but my "likes" SERIOUSLY betray me right now!


End file.
